It seems like “Cheers” star John Ratzenberger is popping up everywhere these days. He’s appeared on shows such as FX’s “Legit,” TNT’s “Franklin & Bash,” and Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” season 5, which returns on June 23. Ratzenberger is also the only actor to voice a character in every Pixar movie, earning him the honorary role of Pixar’s good luck charm. He’s reprising his role as Yeti in “Monsters University,” which is in theaters today.

Ratzenberger’s most famous role was mailman Cliff Clavin on “Cheers.” His successful career has afforded him the chance to own more than 100 cars over the years.

His latest daily driver is a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Sahara, and he made a conscious decision to buy American. “That was the top of the list. If you want America to succeed, buy American products. If you want other countries to succeed, buy their products,” says the actor, whose show “John Ratzenberger’s Made in America” aired on the Travel Channel. “Charity begins at home.”

Ratzenberger enjoyed test driving a few other American cars, but the Wrangler best meets his needs. He rates it an 8 out of 10. “I have a couple of grandchildren, so that space is very handy,” Ratzenberger says. “When we do a road trip you can rely on it, too. So that’s why I like it.”

He enjoyed trying out a Ford Mustang. “It’s funny, before I bought that I did a test drive on a Mustang 5.0 and it was just way too fast for Los Angeles, that’s for sure. If I was in Oklahoma somewhere, I’d buy one of those in a second,” he says. “I’ve had Jeeps before. I’ve had every car out there in my life. I think where the American automakers got into trouble is when they stopped listening to the designers. The golden age of American cars was when they designed cars and they built the cars that the artist designed. The accountants took over and we started making ugly cars that nobody wanted.”

Ratzenberger likes what he currently sees coming out of Detroit, and that includes the Wrangler. “The car makes sense to me. It’s practical and we go mountain biking, so it’s a perfect car for that. I like the desert, before it gets too hot,” he says. He often drives to Reno and Carson City, Nevada, to go mountain biking. “I’ll go anywhere. I’ll just put the bike on the car and not even know where I’m going. It’s just fun. I like the adventure of it all.”

While he keeps the Sahara in Los Angeles, his other cars are in Connecticut. He really enjoys his utilitarian Chevrolet Silverado 1500.

“It’s a Chevy four-wheel-drive pickup truck and I get a lot of use out of that in the winter and throw some sandbags in the bed, for the weight, keep the rear tires down,” Ratzenberger says. “But that’s my workhorse.”

This two-door convertible is the perfect summer car. “It’s a great car,” he says. “It fits the bill for cruising around the hills of Connecticut in New England. I like to take rides in that in the summertime. My wife chose it. She liked the car, so end of story.”

Ratzenberger’s wife also chose a 2010 Hummer, and he hasn’t driven it enough to rate it yet. “She just got that. You can’t ride the Jaguar around in the snow,” he says. “When I met her, she had a Hummer. So she got another one.”

Car he learned to drive in

Ratzenberger’s sister taught him to drive in Connecticut, where they grew up. She had a 1954 Ford.

His father, a truck driver, bought him a 1955 Chevy, and he paid his dad back for it. “It was a 1955 Chevy 3-speed Hurst shift on the floor, mother-of-pearl blue, and it had Hollywood mufflers, glasspacks,” he says. “I wish I still had that first car.”

After college, Ratzenberger went to north Vermont and bought an old International Harvester pickup truck. “I can’t even remember the model number. I’ve probably had 100 cars in my life,” he says, adding he bought it with money he earned as a deckhand on an oyster boat and as a house framer and carpenter. He later bought a Volvo and then a Triumph, which he drove a long time. He also bought a 1953 Chevy panel truck.

“Cheers”

When Ratzenberger was cast on “Cheers” he drove what he calls a “practical car,” an early 1980s Toyota Celica. “The car I had before that in England was a Citroen 2CV,” says the actor, who at one point lived in the U.K. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had in a car. The one with the big bug-eyed headlights. After ‘Cheers,’ I did buy a big Mercedes, and a Lexus, and a BMW for a time.”

A few years into his time on “Cheers,” Ratzenberger bought a 1953 Chevy pickup truck that he rebuilt. “That was a labor of love,” he says.

He would cruise around in the truck with Nick Colasanto, the actor who played “Coach,” on Mulholland Drive or the freeway. Sometimes he would just drive his friend on errands like grocery shopping, “just what people do on Saturday,” he says.

“We were buddies,” he says of Colasanto. “I’d go to his house and pick him up on Saturdays and drive him around towards the end of his life,” he says. “He was pretty sick there towards the end. We worked together for four years everyday. We were pretty good friends. We were the only New Englanders in the cast, so we formed a bond there. I’d go pick him up because he got a real big kick out of that old pickup truck. He really appreciated that particular car.”

Favorite road trip

When his kids were younger Ratzenberger bought an RV and enjoyed driving around the country. “I always enjoyed those road trips, the adventures of those road trips,” he says. “My favorite place to drive is up through Vermont and New Hampshire. Those are great weekend trips.”

One road trip he particularly enjoyed was a late 1980s solo drive from New York to Las Vegas on a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide. He made the trip to help raise awareness for diabetes research. “That was a memorable trip. It was in concert with the American Diabetes Association. I would go city to city to help them raise funds, but I did it on my motorcycle. That was a nice trip.”

When he was still on “Cheers” Ratzenberger had a Dodge van and wanted to see how fast he could drive from Los Angeles to Connecticut. “I did it in three days. That was a memorable road trip in a Dodge truck,” he says.

RealityTVstar.com

For people who want to pitch a reality show idea but don’t know where to start, Ratzenberger created RealityStar.com. “For years and years, having been on ‘Cheers’ and being recognized, it seemed about every day someone was coming up to me saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got a good idea for a TV show.’ And I explained to them there’s a whole process you go through. Now with the advent of reality television, there’s certainly a need for it because everybody out there has a story, everybody has an idea.”

The website will give people access to the studios, he says. “We can take their idea and make them a reality TV star, because everybody knows how to operate a phone camera, talking to the computer and Skype, so if you’ve got an idea, if you think your uncle Bob would make a good reality show, or your baseball team, or hockey moms, then film some of it, explain it on camera and send it to us.”

Ideas will be voted on and winning ideas will be presented to the networks and cable networks, he says. To participate, members pay a subscription ranging from $5 a month for 12 months, $9 a month for 6 months, or $15 a month for three months. “There’s no person that doesn’t have a story, and if they want to be on television telling that story, we can help them,” Ratzenberger says.

Ratzenberger’s Pixar and TV roles

Ratzenberger plays Walter Nugent on “Legit,” which had been on FX but will return in early 2014 on the FX Network’s newest channel, FXX, which is scheduled to premiere September 2 in 74 million homes.

“When they sent me the script I laughed out loud, and the reviews now are calling it the funniest shows on television,” he says. “It’s a of lot fun, especially the way they shoot it. If you come up with an idea, if it’s funny, then they’ll just go ahead and shoot it, whether it’s in the script or not and if they can make it work. I think it’s the way all sitcoms will be filmed after a while because it makes perfect sense, as long as you keep in line with story and if it makes it funny.”

He credits Jim Jeffries for filming the show this way. “He’s a standup comedian. It’s his show and he’s the executive producer, so he understands the creative element and how it all works. It’s a lot of fun to work on. I’m glad they asked me.”

Ratzenberger also just finished filming a role as a judge on TNT’s “Franklin & Bash” and he returns to Lifetime on “Drop Dead Diva” with season 5 premiering on June 23.

He is in every Pixar film, and returns as Yeti in “Monsters University,” which is in theaters today. He feels lucky to be able to be in each Pixar film. “I started with them and thank God they give me a part in every movie,” he says. “I never question it. I just show up and enjoy it immensely. This is the prequel to ‘Monsters, Inc.’ and that’s where the characters met in college.”

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